Tag Archive for: CSLDP Module 11

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Understanding Your Why, Purpose and Values

 

Know your ‘why’.

Values and gaining an understanding of your key drivers and motivations matter. I know this because people keep telling me. 

Maybe not in specific values-related language, but certainly when they describe how they feel and what is happening at that time.

CoachStation: Leadership, Pupose, Values and Your Why

Knowing your core purpose, why we make certain decisions and the influence of values impacts lives. They affect how we feel about our job, relationships and life in general. What is satisfying at work? What is frustrating? How relationships are going? The joys of a new friendship…or an old. Your ‘why’ influences all of these questions.

It is when values align and we develop understanding of self and our motivations that genuine satisfaction and comfort is felt. Conversely, we are often at our most vulnerable and emotional when core values are being breached. Or, challenged when asked to compromise the things that matter the most.
Purpose:

  1. the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
  2. a person’s sense of resolve or determination.

Values:

  1. the importance, worth, or usefulness of something
  2. principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life.

When developing, maintaining and growing my business, I have focused heavily on the ‘why’. Similarly, during coaching and mentoring sessions with clients, I find myself delving into the same theme. Not everyone can answer these questions about themselves easily, however. Understanding your passions, why you do what you do and your core beliefs will help you understand not only who you are, but assist to drive your future goals and direction. (1)

Values and purpose are often downplayed, both in concept and understanding.

Core values are the guiding principles that dictate behaviour and action. Values facilitate self-awareness and help people to know what is right from wrong. They can help organisations to determine their direction and align business goals. They also create a sustained, unwavering and unchanging guide.
It is this degree of self-awareness and self-acceptance that is central to personal and professional development. Taking time to reflect and understand what your purpose is, may be one way that you can learn to describe better influence and connect with others. Ensure that your team members, colleagues and friends can understand your perspective and decisions.

Whether it is your boss, members of your team, spouse or peers, the opportunity to delve, understand and explain has great power. This type of conversation goes some way to breaking down the barriers that exist when we allow others to assume what is most important to us. Be clear about your purpose and ‘why’ and share this detail with those who matter most.

Diversity and points of difference between people can be one of the most important drivers of individual and team success. But, only when the time is taken to improve self-awareness, learn more about other people and the best ways to work together. This rarely occurs without appropriate effort and focus.
I have developed and facilitated workshops focusing on the theme of diversity, specifically the differences that naturally exist between people. Diversity has quickly become one of CoachStation’s most popular themes/programs, when working at group level or with individual clients being coached and mentored. Developing a core purpose, why and set of meaningful values is as important for teams as individuals.

People lose their way when they lose their why – Michael Hyatt

Articulating beliefs and reflective thoughts to people creates a potential common ground of words and language. It certainly provides clarity and opportunity for deeper and more authentic connection. Knowing your values connects with a deeper set of motivations. They help to understand why you make certain decisions, choices and drive your actions.

What we know about people at work is that at the end of the day, they want to matter, to feel significant. They want to be respected, heard, honored, and supported; they want to win, learn, grow, and do their best. What we need are cultures that recognize this principle, and lead accordingly. By creating a leadership culture where people feel they matter, everything else the business needs to do will happen—productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability. (2)

Help people to help you by providing details about your purpose, values, beliefs and motivations.
 The alternative is to foster ambiguity and allow people to make assumptions about what matters most to you. Which would you prefer?

Watch the CoachStation video clip below to learn more about values and their influence on your life.

 

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Leadership Benefits: Self-Awareness and ROI

Does self-awareness and an understanding of leadership impact really matter to organisations?

 

CoachStation: Self-awareness and Leadership Development

Nearly all managers and people in leadership roles believe they make a difference. In some cases, this is true. In reality however, the evidence continues to demonstrate that leaders overstate their value and influence.

One of the core traits observed in the best leaders I have worked with is self-awareness. This is tightly linked to a willingness to be honest with themselves as well as others. There are also points such as decision making beliefs and biases that influence our position on many topics. Our actions are also reinforced by these biases. All the more reason to take a strong position that as a leader it is important to regularly review your own performance as well as that of your team members. We overstate our performance across many fields, so anything that provides a more frank and balanced sense of self is valuable.

  • In a survey of college professors, 94% said they did above average work.
  • In a survey of corporate CEO’s, a whopping 92% said they were the only person who could do their job effectively. By the way, more than 50% of those corporations were losing money.
  • In an M&A involving a flailing target, the average firms pays 40+% more for the target acquisition than the current stock price. Why? Because the acquiring execs believe that they can run the acquisition more profitably. (1)

As an example, I have seen the challenge of holding yourself accountable as a leader when participating in performance appraisal calibration sessions within several organisations.
Dilbert: Honest Leadership Assessment
The discussion is often about what employees have not achieved or the reasons why they will be ‘marked down’. There are two strong points of failures with this:

  1. The disappointing attitude of some leaders that the employee underperformance is a surprise. If the leader acknowledges that an individual has underperformed, then they should be prepared to look at themselves and the failure to have made a difference for/with that person over the past 6-12 months. If it is not the leader’s responsibility to manage this, whose is it?
  2. The focus on the 10-20% of what an employee is not achieving is out of proportion with the discussion of the 80-90% of what is working well. In my experience, the vast majority of these type of discussions focus on what is isn’t, not what it is. This is particularly disheartening if there is little support and coaching provided to to turn this situation around throughout the period. I have been in situations where I have held underperforming employees accountable to the point of terminating employment after much effort to turn them around. Afterwards, during performance calibration sessions I have had other managers state that the decision to terminate is a good one as the employee has been a poor performer for years! My response will always be, “why had nothing been done about it then?” I hope you can see the irony in leadership statements such as this.

Does leadership make that much of a difference to business outcomes and success? You bet! The effort and willingness to grow and develop as a leader is the only way that this benefit can be realised, however. There is ample evidence that those organisations who focus on developing their leadership group see the benefit in many ways beyond improved employee engagement.

Organisations with the strongest leaders have nearly double the revenue growth compared to those with weaker leaders. However, most leaders lack the full complement of skills to thrive in today’s rapidly changing environment…organisations must adjust their approach to leadership and develop leaders who are able to build and enable. In order for organisations to achieve higher growth, truly differentiate themselves from competitors and maintain an edge, they must set a higher bar for their leaders, requiring them to go beyond setting strategic direction and driving execution. (2)

One of the keys to knowing whether you truly add value as a leader is through measurement, both tangible and non-financial. A key question here is, are all aspects of business measurable?

Calculating business benefits is often a complex art. As anyone who has been involved in business cases can testify, investments in ‘tangibles’ e.g. IT infrastructure, marketing spend etc. are often difficult to quantify in terms of the real monetary value they deliver. So when we start to think about investments that deliver ‘intangible’ benefits such as changes in leadership behaviour, the waters get murkier still. In too many cases, the evaluation of Leadership Development Programmes is not properly planned or budgeted for. Rather, it is seen as a tag-on, something to be put together at the very end…work needs to have clearly defined, specific and measurable objectives. So start with the end in mind:

  • What is the desired outcome of the programme?
  • What does success look like?
  • And then the killer question…what are the business metrics that we want to see impacted by this piece of work? (3)
The main point here is to ensure that you have a clearly set expectation for every employee, team and leader. You cannot hold people accountable for something that you have not set standards and expectations for in the first place. Confirming that each person understands and has the opportunity to participate in developing these expectations is also important. When combined with honest self-appraisal and subsequent action the opportunity to influence and contribute to your organisation is increased significantly.

Even more importantly, the influence on and buy-in you will receive from your team members will encourage you to continue down this developmental path and feel the effort is worthwhile. The alternative is to stagnate and continue to do what you have always done. Is that the type of leader you want to be?

(1)  http://switchandshift.com/when-leaders-wear-rose-colored-business-glasses

(2) Inside HR – Strong Leaders Grow Revenues Twice As Fast, Issue 2, 2014: Pg 6
(3) http://www.ysc.com/our-thinking/article/measuring-the-roi-of-leadership-development

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Life Choices: The Decision Tree

I have walked that long road to freedom

I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way.

But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb.

I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come.

But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”

(Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born 1918, South African lawyer, statesman and 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner, from Mandela’s inspirational 1994 book, Long Walk to Freedom.)

 

Although it is hard for any of us to truly imagine what the life of Nelson Mandela must be like, I am certain that his ability to make decisions has much depth, balance and complexity. Many of these choices have been made at the expense of his own freedom and self-interest but were choices that were Nelson Mandela’s to make.

Imagine that the tree below represents your life from birth at the very bottom, in the roots of the trunk to death at the very extreme ends of the outermost twigs. Consider that each step along the journey of life (or symbolically in this representation along the trunk, branches and twigs) represents continuous learning and decisions made at various stages of your life.

Naturally, in the formative years the trunk is thicker, symbolising that the first 5-10 years of life are an incredible learning and development opportunity, influenced by family, school, friendship groups etc. As we get older and develop greater independence we begin to make more decisions on our own – i.e. move up the tree along the branch network. Which branch do we take?

These choices are influenced by many factors such as situation, values, personality, ethics, morals and other inputs.

Once decisions are made and progress continues through living life or metaphorically moving ‘up the tree’ we will never be back at that previous position again. A different decision takes us along a different pathway or branch, always moving higher, always developing with each step forward or change in direction reflecting a decision that you have made.

By the time we get to the end of our journey i.e. the outer-most twigs and branches, we have made many decisions that have affected where precisely on the tree we have ended up. It doesn’t really matter whether you are on the left, far right or the middle section of the tree by journey’s end. We all start at the same point at birth, however ultimately, your final position is dictated by the decisions you make along the way.
The tree has many distinct and potentially varied pathways, fulfilling a meaningful and sustained life, yet share few commonalities between pathways apart from the initial starting point.

There are few rights and wrongs but many opportunities exist to forge your own direction.

One of the important aspects of this analogy is to (as much as is humanly possible) ensure that the decisions made along the pathway of life are made for the ‘right’ reasons at that particular time. Maintain a genuine desire to move forward, remove bias as much as possible from decisions and remove any future opportunity to question the decision and ultimately, the pathway taken. How can you regret a decision made in the past:

  • If you know it was genuinely made with all the right intentions?
  • It was made through seeking the most detail and information available at the time?
  • If you had your own and others best interests in mind?

As years pass, you won’t remember the finer details regarding the decision-making process but if this is a consistent philosophy that you adopt you are more likely to remain comfortable with your decisions and the direction(s) you have taken. Regrets are all too often the result of a lack of information, confidence and transparency in our own abilities to clearly make these decisions in the moment. Clarity of purpose, removing decision bias/prejudice and developing a high degree of self-awareness will lead to fewer genuine regrets.

Whilst you ponder your own choices also consider the choices made by others. Use these examples to compare journeys and check whether where you find yourself right now is by deliberate design, luck or good planning. I often consider my pathway and influence on my own direction however I wonder how someone like Mandela feels about his life choices.

Although you may feel that your own life and subsequent choices have less global impact and recognition than those of someone like Mandela, never underestimate the effect of your choices on yourself or those around you – choices always matter and always have an impact!

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.

(Booker T Washington, 1856-1915, American Educator and African-American spokesman)

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Seeking Work-Life Balance: Myth Or Manageable

I was recently fortunate enough to be invited to participate on a panel in my workplace focusing on work-life balance – a phrase that is possibly overused and misunderstood and a term that I have read conflicting opinions on in recent months.

 

 

The panel forum consisted of a number of employees in the audience and 4 panel member’s, including myself, who each pitched out their own thoughts on the topic and then received questions from the audience. It was a very interesting exercise as I found that each of our situations was quite different. Whereas we may have been in similar roles at work, our roles and focus at home was quite varied regarding how we manage our time and the choices we make. However, there were some consistent themes that carried over between speakers.

My view is that work-life balance is an extremely important facet of my life. I have significant responsibility in my role – something I take quite seriously, particularly the support, satisfaction and growth of my team. However, nothing is more important to me than my family.

My work provides me an income, a great deal of satisfaction and has contributed to who I am, my knowledge, values and self-awareness but I always seek to balance what is required from me at work with that at home. It requires developing a  strong skillset around delegation; time management / prioritisation; recruiting and developing the right team and culture; building trust and many others attributes. I work with many managers who do not find a balance often because they struggle to understand what is most important to them.

A recent article highlights research that demonstrates that many of us are finding this balance more difficult to achieve. Key findings include:

  • The majority (78%) of those who work overtime prefer payment to time off in lieu
  • 75% of part-time workers believe work/life balance is becoming harder
  • 83% of full-time workers believe it is becoming harder
  • 24% of workers earning less than $50,000 are finding it much harder
  • 65 per cent of workers perform work tasks or answer work-related calls when they are on holiday
  • 35 per cent of employees never work on holidays or days off

Source: Work Life Balance Harder Than Ever

It requires a definitive view and focus on goals and direction, otherwise it is too easy to get ‘pulled into’ other people’s needs and wants. Often these wants seem urgent but in fact, are not critical. This is where relationships, communication and prioritisation are key.

This is a large topic that I am briefly touching on, but I would like to share my key thoughts as presented during the forum:

  • Understanding what is important to me
  • Understanding what is important to others – my family and my team
  • Surround myself with a good team – provides opportunity and ability to delegate and share workload
  • Develop my leadership skillset to be effective and efficient
  • Prioritise…Prioritise…
  • Find what you enjoy most…do more of it
  • Find what you enjoy least…remove as much of this as possible
  • Understand values and beliefs for yourself and of those closest to you
  • Communication and clarity are key
  • Work with and for your family and team…not at them
  • Take and maintain control of your choices and decision-making
  • Tell and show those most important to you that you love them…regularly!

One or more of these points may resonate with you and hopefully stimulate thought about where these attributes, actions and skills sit in your life. I would also be interested to know what you have done or work at to strike the ‘right’ balance in your life.

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